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30 results in Cambridge Elements

Page 2 of 2

Defining Policy Analysis: A Journey that Never Ends

Defining Policy Analysis: A Journey that Never Ends
  • Beryl A. Radin
  • Published online:
    19 December 2020
    Print publication:
    28 January 2021
  • For much of its life, the field of policy analysis has lived with a wide range of definitions of its goals, work and significance in the society. This Element seeks to sort out these differences by describing the issues, players and developments that have played a role over the life of this field. As a result of the relationships that have developed an environment has emerged where both academics and practitioners who self identify as 'policy analysts' are not always recognized as such by others who use that same label.This Element explores the reasons why this conflictual situation has developed and whether the current status is a major departure from the past. While these developments may not be new or found only in policy analysis, they do have an impact on the status of the academics as well as the practitioners in the field.
Zombie Ideas

Zombie Ideas
  • Why Failed Policy Ideas Persist
  • Brainard Guy Peters, Maximilian Lennart Nagel
  • Published online:
    27 November 2020
    Print publication:
    24 December 2020
  • Ideas are important in shaping the policy choices of governments. But many ideas that have not been successful in the past continue to be used by policymakers, and some good ideas tend not to be adopted. This Element will focus on why governments make these poor policy choices. We will discuss a number of examples of 'zombie ideas' that refuse to die, and then discuss the factors that are associated with their survival. Those factors occur at the elite, the organizational and the societal level. We will also examine some 'ghost' ideas that may well be successful but have a difficult time being adopted, and the factors that are associated with the exclusion of these ideas from the policy process.
Understanding and Analyzing Public Policy Design

Understanding and Analyzing Public Policy Design
  • Saba Siddiki
  • Published online:
    27 June 2020
    Print publication:
    23 July 2020
  • There has been a surge in scholarship on policy design over the last ten years, as scholars seek to understand and develop existing concepts, theories, and methods engaged in the study of policy design in the context of modern governance. This Element adds to the current discourse on the study of policy design by (i) presenting behavioral assumptions and structural features of policy design; (ii) presenting a multi-level analytical framework for organizing policy design research; (iii) highlighting the role of policy compatibility and policy adaptability in influencing policy efficacy; and (iv) presenting future research recommendations relating to these topics.
Making Global Policy

Making Global Policy
  • Diane Stone
  • Published online:
    22 November 2019
    Print publication:
    12 December 2019
    • Element
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  • Global policy making is taking shape in a wide range of public sector activities managed by transnational policy communities. Public policy scholars have long recognised the impact of globalisation on the industrialised knowledge economies of OECD states, as well as on social and economic policy challenges faced by developing and transition states. But the focus has been on domestic politics and policy. Today, policy studies literature is building new concepts of 'transnational public-private partnership', 'trans-governmentalism' and 'science diplomacy' to account for rapid growth of global policy networks and informal international organisations delivering public goods and services. This Element goes beyond traditional texts which focus on public policy as an activity of states to outline how global policy making has driven many global and regional transformations over the past quarter-century. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Policy Entrepreneurs and Dynamic Change

Policy Entrepreneurs and Dynamic Change
  • Michael Mintrom
  • Published online:
    25 October 2019
    Print publication:
    07 November 2019
  • Policy entrepreneurs are energetic actors who engage in collaborative efforts in and around government to promote policy innovations. Interest in policy entrepreneurs has grown over recent years. Increasingly, they are recognized as a unique class of political actors, who display common attributes, deploy common strategies, and can propel dynamic shifts in societal practices. This Element assesses the current state of knowledge on policy entrepreneurs, their actions, and their impacts. It explains how various global forces are creating new demand for policy entrepreneurship, and suggests directions for future research on policy entrepreneurs and their efforts to drive dynamic change.
How Ideas and Institutions Shape the Politics of Public Policy

How Ideas and Institutions Shape the Politics of Public Policy
  • Daniel Béland
  • Published online:
    24 May 2019
    Print publication:
    30 May 2019
  • This Element provides a critical review of existing literature on the role of ideas and institutions in the politics of public policy with the aim of contributing to the study of the politics of public policy. Because most policy scholars deal with the role of ideas or institutions in their research, such a critical review should help them improve their knowledge of crucial analytical issues in policy and political analysis. The following discussion brings together insights from both the policy studies literature and new institutionalism in sociology and political science, and stresses the explanatory role of ideas and institutions.
The Protective State

The Protective State
  • Christopher Ansell
  • Published online:
    04 April 2019
    Print publication:
    18 April 2019
  • The modern state protects citizens from many different harms, from industrial accidents to airline crashes. This Element illuminates a distinctive politics of protection that transcends policy sectors as diverse as criminal justice, consumer protection, and public health. Adopting a comparative and historical perspective, the Element identifies common drivers of protective state-building as well as cross-national differences in the politics of protection. The Element concludes by examining political theories of the protective state, which seek to defend and critique the obligations for and the limits of state protection.
Pragmatism and the Origins of the Policy Sciences

Pragmatism and the Origins of the Policy Sciences
  • Rediscovering Lasswell and the Chicago School
  • William N. Dunn
  • Published online:
    08 March 2019
    Print publication:
    14 March 2019
  • This Element presents an examination of the origins of the policy sciences in the School of Pragmatism at the University of Chicago in the period 1915–38. Harold D. Lasswell, the principal creator of the policy sciences, based much of his work on the perspectives of public policy of John Dewey and other pragmatists at Chicago. Characteristics of the policy sciences include orientations that are normative, policy-relevant, contextual, and multi-disciplinary. These orientations originate in pragmatist principles of the unity of knowledge and action and functionalist explanations of action by reference to values. These principles are central to the future development of the policy sciences.
Making Policy in a Complex World

Making Policy in a Complex World
  • Paul Cairney, Tanya Heikkila, Matthew Wood
  • Published online:
    01 February 2019
    Print publication:
    07 February 2019
  • This provocative Element is on the 'state of the art' of theories that highlight policymaking complexity. It explains complexity in a way that is simple enough to understand and use. The primary audience is policy scholars seeking a single authoritative guide to studies of 'multi-centric policymaking'. It synthesises this literature to build a research agenda on the following questions:1. How can we best explain the ways in which many policymaking 'centres' interact to produce policy?2. How should we research multi-centric policymaking?3. How can we hold policymakers to account in a multi-centric system?4. How can people engage effectively to influence policy in a multi-centric system?However, by focusing on simple exposition and limiting jargon, Paul Cairney, Tanya Heikkila, Matthew Wood also speak to a far wider audience of practitioners, students, and new researchers seeking a straightforward introduction to policy theory and its practical lessons.
Designing for Policy Effectiveness

Designing for Policy Effectiveness
  • Defining and Understanding a Concept
  • B. Guy Peters, Giliberto Capano, Michael Howlett, Ishani Mukherjee, Meng-Hsuan Chou, Pauline Ravinet
  • Published online:
    28 March 2018
    Print publication:
    22 March 2018
  • The field of policy studies has always been interested in analyzing and improving the sets of policy tools adopted by governments to correct policy problems, and better understanding and improving processes of policy analysis and policy formulation in order to do so. Past studies have helped clarify the role of historical processes, policy capacities and design intentions in affecting policy formulation processes, and more recently in understanding how the bundling of multiple policy elements together to meet policy goals can be better understood and done. While this work has progressed, however, the discussion of what goals policy designs should serve remains disjointed. Here it is argued that a central goal, in fact, 'the' central goal, of policy design is effectiveness. Effectiveness serves as the basic goal of any design, upon which is built other goals such as efficiency or equity.

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